Letter 470: Theodore Studite, Letter 470; Greek heading: Θεοδώρῳ ξενοδόχῳ.

Here, master, is the letter you have been requesting; so release us from the charge. But why, you will say, not sooner? Because we felt a certain reverence about offering admonishing and instructive words to your honored self. Since you desire it, receive it, most beloved. The true Christian, then, is nothing other than an imitation and impress [aposphragisma, a stamped likeness as from a seal] of Christ, bound to be so much made His own that he stands to Him as each member to the head and as the branch to the vine. For the Lord Himself has said, "I am the vine, you are the branches"; and again the Apostle: "You are the body of Christ, and members in particular" [1 Corinthians 12:27]. Let us therefore bear fruit, O master, the clusters of the virtues, and let us not be unfruitful; for the Lord says, "Every branch that does not bear good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire" -- the fire of Gehenna, that is. Let us fear the fearful threat; let us glorify God in our body and in our spirit, as again the Apostle commands; for he says this also: "Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of a harlot? God forbid." So let us guard ourselves. Let us love our own wives as our own bodies, and we shall not lust after a wanton body. "The wife," he says, "that she may fear her husband"; for by tempering fear with affection she would live the best of lives. "Children, obey your parents," as again he says; for it is just that parents be honored and cared for in their old age by their children. For they, after God, are the cause of their coming into the light; and, "a father's blessing establishes the houses of children, but a mother's curse uproots their foundations." And, "fathers," he says again, "do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and admonition of the Lord." So that it is also the parents' work to keep their children at peace, to form and mold them with the stamp of piety. What next? That servants be subject to their masters with fear and trembling, without guile and with good heart; but that the masters too, slackening their threats, regard all with an equal share of concern, knowing that there is one Lord of all, God; and that here below servitude is like marriage, but in the age to come there is the abolition of both, and all are one, just as the angels are. For this reason every one who wishes to be saved must be watchful, to live according to the commandment: not to swear, not to be distracted, not to laugh, not to live luxuriously, not to play, not to be wrathful, not to fornicate, not to be drunken, not to hoard up gold; but what then? To pray, to weep, to sing hymns, to perform the commandments as far as is possible, to be content with little, to be humble-minded, to love one's neighbor, not to speak ill of a brother, not to envy, not to be angry, to be ever ready for dangers undertaken for the sake of the good, to fear no other on earth but God who is good, to be subject to the emperor in those things in which the commandment of God is not damaged, to honor rulers as ministers of good order, to rejoice in the Lord always, and even if there should be an occurrence of grievous things, to give thanks to the Lord for whatever He may dispense [oikonomei, ordering by His providential dispensation] in matters concerning Himself. These things I have called to mind, as briefly as I could, for your blessed soul, that I might make known that I am one who loves my namesake, a pious man and an ardent friend. And if we still live, we shall still speak, we shall still exhort, we shall still counsel that all things be reckoned second to the love of God; for what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world but suffer the loss of his own soul? From this may we flee, and may we find mercy in the day of judgment and the being with God in joy unspeakable unto the ages.